1.1. Each cluster bomb is composed of 200 to 700 bomblets. When each
bomblet explodes it fragments into about 300 pieces of jagged steel -
sending out virtual blizzards of deadly shrapnel. People are
decapitated, arms, legs, hands and feet are severed from their bodies -
anyone and anything alive in the immediate vicinity is shredded into a
bloody mess.

1.2. Cluster bombs cause damage over a very large and imprecise area.
Once released from a U.S. Air Force or Navy jet, cluster bombs fall for
a pre-set amount of time or distance before their dispensers open,
spreading the bomblets widely so they can effectively slaughter people
over a wide area. The wide dispersal pattern of cluster munitions makes
them difficult to target accurately.

1.3. Each cluster bomblet is activated by an internal fuze, and is set
to explode above ground, on impact, or to be time-delayed - that is,
they can be made into time bombs or mines. The smaller bombs are
designed to explode near the time of impact. But since 5% to 30% fail to
explode at the time set for them, unexploded bombs litter every target
area, silent and nondescript. Until picked up by an unfortunate child or
accidentally kicked by a passerby. In this way they become hidden
killers, blending into their surroundings like land mines. And over time
cluster bombs become more unstable - they explode more easily.
Because of their high failure rate, cluster munitions leave large
numbers of hazardous, explosive duds, a great many unexploded
"dud" submunitions that become de facto antipersonnel
landmines that may cause injury or death to civilians long after the war
is overů (Amnesty International "Iraq: Use of cluster bombs --
Civilians pay the price" 2 April 2003, AI Index: MDE 14/065/2003)

1.4. A Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) firing unit could
sequentially launch twelve rockets containing 7,728 submunitions
(dual-purpose grenades) designed to explode on impact into an area of
120,000 to 240,000 square meters at a range of up to 32 kilometers. The
reliability rate for the M77 submunitions is 84 percent according to a
U.S. Department of Defense report to the U.S. Congress on unexploded
ordnance (UXO) published in 2000. Using this reliability rate, the MLRS
firing mission described above would result in 1,236 unexploded
submunitions scattered randomly in the impact area. Only a trained
military expert could tell whether they are armed and hazardous or
whether they failed to arm. The preceding illustration uses only one
launch unit firing its payload once. Typically there are four launch
units in a battery of MLRS. (Human Rights Watch: A Global Overview of
Explosive Submunitions 1 May 2002)

2. Dangers were foreseeable and avoidable

Human Right Watch wrote on 18 March: Cluster Munitions a Foreseeable
Hazard in Iraq. "The use of cluster munitions in Iraq will result
in grave dangers to civilians and friendly combatants. Based on
experiences in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Yugoslavia/Kosovo in 1999,
and Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, these dangers are both foreseeable and
preventable."
HRW has written multiple studies about the dramatic harms caused by the
use of cluster bombs during the previous US-wars of Irak, Kosovo and
Afghanistan. At least eighty U.S. casualties during the 1991 Gulf War
were attributed to cluster munition duds. More than 4,000 civilians were
killed or injured by cluster munition duds after the end of the war. (http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/arms/cluster031803.htm
)

3. Geneva Convention

"Persons taking no active part in the hostilities ... shall in
all circumstances be treated humanely." Those are the opening words
of the Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time
of War, signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949.
Although cluster bombs are not explicitly forbidden by the Geneva Law,
the rules of war
prohibit the use of inherently indiscriminate weapons or weapons that
are incapable of
being used in a manner that complies with the obligation to distinguish
between civilians and combatants. Those who use them in civilian areas
therefore open themselves to charges of war crimes.

4. U.S. Cluster Munitions

The United States stockpiles over one billion submunitions in weapons
currently in service. Nearly three-quarters of this stockpile of
submunitions are contained in MLRS rockets and 155mm artillery
projectiles. Given reported failure rates, a stockpile of that size
creates the specter of well over 100 million explosive duds, each posing
a danger to civilians similar to antipersonnel landmines. (Human
Rights Watch: A Global Overview of Explosive Submunitions May 2002)
Four types of U.S. cluster munitions have a history of producing high
numbers of hazardous submunition duds. High dud rates have been
documented in testing for Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) M77
submunitions and 155mm artillery projectiles with M42 and M46 Dual
Purpose Improved Conventional Munition (DPICM) submunitions. Two types
of air-dropped cluster munitions--older Rockeye (CBU99/CBU-100) bombs
and newer Combined Effects Munitions (CBU-87)--have produced high
numbers of hazardous duds in combat operations in Iraq, Kuwait,
Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. (www.hrw.org/backgrounder/arms/)
In addition to these four cluster munitions, there are others with high
failure rates that could be used in Iraq. While many of the older
Vietnam-era cluster munitions that were used in large numbers in 1991 in
Kuwait and Iraq are no longer serviceable and are prohibited from use,
the U.S. military is retaining some older cluster munitions to make up
for shortfalls in the inventories of newer, more reliable cluster
munitions. For example, one older type of 105mm artillery projectile
(designated M444) with a submunition dud rate of 12 percent is being
retained to cover for stockpile shortages of another projectile
(designated M915) with a 1 percent dud rate and a self-destruct fuze.

5. The cluster bomb "Made in UK" : RBL 755

Each RBL 755 weighs 600 lb and breaks up in the air releasing 147
bomblets, each of which explodes into approximately 2000 metal
fragments. About the size of a soft-drink can, parachutes slow the
bomblets' fall, and each has the explosive power to destroy a tank - if
by some miracle it hits a tank in the right place. That's a big
"IF" indeed - considering the safe-for-the-pilot altitude from
which the bombs are dropped. Such high-altitude delivery guarantees
there will be essentially zero accuracy. That means lots of dead
civilian people, including children.

6. US-army and UK-army massively used cluster bombs

6.1. The use of cluster bombs has been admitted by both the U.S. and
British military. (Human Rights Watch "U.S. Misleading on
Cluster Munitions" 25 April 2003)
Both the U.S. and the British used several types of cluster munitions,
including those that have caused severe humanitarian problems in the
former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. (Human Rights Watch "U.S. Use
of Clusters in Baghdad Condemned" 16 April 2003) The cluster
bombs that were used in Hilla were identified by Landmine Action, a
UK-based NGO, as BLU97. Submunitions from artillery projectiles and
multiple launch rockets, as well as aircraft cluster bombs, may have
produced tens of thousands of hazardous duds in numerous locations in
Iraq, including urban areas, said Reuben Brigety, researcher with the
Arms Division of Human Rights Watch.

6.2. The U.S. Department of Defense has acknowledged using nearly
1,500 air-dropped cluster bombs, but has not revealed any information
about ground-launched cluster munitions, which may have been much more
numerous. An unnamed U.S. defense official told a reporter for Los
Angles Times that the U.S. does not keep track of ground launched
cluster munitions.

6.3. The U.K. Ministry of Defense Geoff Hoon, admitted on April 24
that its forces had used 2,100 cluster munition artillery projectiles
and at least 66 BL-755 cluster bombs in the conflict. The out-of-date
BL-755 cluster bombs produced a large number of unexploded duds in
combat operations in Kuwait and Yugoslavia/Kosovo. The artillery
projectile used by the United Kingdom, called the L20A1, contains 49
submunitions, each equipped with a self-destruct device, which the
manufacturer claims reduces the dud rate to below 2 percent. There have
also been reports that U.K. ground forces used Multiple Launch Rocket
Systems, which have a submunition dud rate of 16 percent or more.

6.4. The U.S. even boasted that they used "for the first time in
combat history" a new version of this banned weapon, the CBU-105. ("US
drops new high tech cluster bomb in Iraq" - http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s823003.htm)
Also British officers, and Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, confirmed that
they had used new cluster munitions near Basra. (Mark Odell
"Widespread Use of Cluster Bombs Sparks Outrage" Financial
Times, 4 April 2003)

7. Some facts

7.1. On Tuesday 1 April, an AFP correspondent at Hilla south of
Baghdad saw what seemed to be the parts of cluster bombs peppered over a
large area. Hospital officials and witnesses said 48 civilians had died
in US-British bombardment of the area since late Monday.
The scenes at al-Hilla's hospital on 1 April showed that something
terrible had happened. The bodies of the men, women and children - both
dead and alive - brought to the hospital were punctured with shards of
shrapnel from cluster bombs.
Robert Fisk of the Independent wrote: "Terrifying film of women and
children later emerged after Reuters and the Associated Press were
permitted by the Iraqi authorities to take their
cameras into the town. Their pictures - the first by Western news
agencies from the Iraqi side of the battlefront - showed babies cut in
half and children with amputation wounds, apparently caused by American
shellfire and cluster bombs. Much of the videotape was too terrible to
show on television and the agencies' Baghdad editors felt able to send
only a few minutes of a 21-minute tape that included a father holding
out pieces of his baby and screaming "cowards, cowards" into
the camera. Two lorryloads of bodies, including women in flowered
dresses, could be seen outside the Hilla hospital." (The
Independent April 03, 2003)

Injured survivors told reporters how the explosives fell "like
grapes" from the sky, and how bomblets bounced through the windows
and doors of their homes before exploding. A doctor at al-Hilla's
hospital said that almost all the patients were victims of cluster
bombs. Many of the cluster bombs reportedly dropped from the air by US
forces on a civilian area of al-Hilla were of the type BLU97 A. Landmine
Action, a UK-based non-governmental organization, has stated that
pictures from al-Hilla show unexploded BLU97 A cluster submunition.
When questioned about the attack on al-Hilla, General Brooks, speaking
for the US Central Command, did not deny the use of cluster bombs. He
said: "[I]n our approach to targeting and using things like cluster
munitions, we always give consideration to what types of activities are
likely to occur there nextů I don't have any specifics about that
particular attack and the explosions that would link it to cluster
munitions at all."

7.2. Apart from the attack on Hilla, the U.S. troops have reportedly
also used cluster bombs in Baghdad and other places. According to some
reports, children have been severely injured when they found unexploded
fragments of cluster bombs in densely populated areas of Baghdad. (Thomas
Frank "Grisly Results of U.S. Cluster Bombs" Newsday, 15 April
2003; Rosalind Russell "Cluster bombs - a hidden enemy for Iraqi
children" Reuters, 18 April 2003; Mark Baker "Hundreds are
dying who should not die" The Age, 21 April 2003) - http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/20/1050777165468.html

7.3. Several reports indicate that there may have been civilian
casualties as a result of the use of cluster bombs. For example, on 5
April two clusters bombs reportedly dropped by US forces on the al-Baladiyat
quarter in the southwest of Baghdad left eight people wounded, residents
told AFP. Small bomblets were scattered over a courtyard between several
brick buildings. Most of the 50,000 residents of the quarter are
Palestinian families who fled to Iraq in 1948.

7.4. The AFP reported on April 29 that unexploded U.S. cluster bombs
were still making civilian casualties in the city of Najaf. A U.S.
marine confirmed that unexploded ordnance still littered the area but
added that they were unable to clear it because they were short on
people. ( "US cluster bombing leaves Iraqi city angry over dead,
maimed" AFP, 29 April 2003)

7.5. "The Evil of Cluster Bombs", by Essam Al-Ghalib, Arab
News War Correspondent http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=24936
NAJAF, 9 April 2003 - Six days after the "liberation" of Najaf,
Iraqis of all ages continue to pack the corridors of Saddam Hussein
General Hospital. They are mostly victims of unexploded munitions that
are strewn throughout various residential neighborhoods - along streets,
in family homes, in school playgrounds, in the fields belonging to
farms...
US forces have been using cluster bombs against Iraqi soldiers. But the
majority of the victims are civilians, mostly children curious about the
small shiny objects which are the same size as a child's hand.
Cluster bombs, as explained by an administrator at the hospital, have
been dropped by the hundred. They are supposed to explode on impact.
However, many do not, and lie on the street exposed to the elements.
A young Iraqi in Najaf told Arab News yesterday: "They are
everywhere, and they are going off periodically. We don't even have to
touch them - they just go off by themselves, especially as the
temperature rises throughout the day."
In a residential neighborhood where nine civilians were killed by heavy
US shelling last week, a sudden explosion sent this correspondent and
civilians running for cover.
Back at Saddam Hussein General Hospital, a seven-year-old boy, the skin
burned off his legs, was being turned away by the doctors. The burns
extended from the soles of his feet to midway up his little thighs. His
father, distraught and with a look of desperation on his face, told Arab
News as he held his son in his arms: "They say his injuries are
minor compared with others here. They say that they can't waste their
medication on him. They won't even give him pain killers."
"He was playing at his school when somehow a munition
exploded," the father explained. "They need to come and clear
our schools and homes of these explosives."
Arab News visited several of the hospital's wards and saw victims of the
"liberation" of Najaf. A six-year-old girl suffering from
shrapnel injuries, whose leg was drilled to accommodate a bone brace for
her broken thigh, started crying as the doctor explained to the
journalists present that her right foot had become gangrenous and so
would have to be amputated.
Saddam Hussein General Hospital alone has seen 307 deaths and treated
920 injuries. Of those, only 20 of the dead and 50 of the injured were
soldiers.

Last month's claim by the Pentagon that only one civilian has died
from cluster bombing is breathtaking in its audacious distortion of
reality. General Richard Myers, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs
of Staff said Friday 25th April:
"Only one of the nearly 1,500 cluster bombs used by coalition
forces in Iraq resulted in civilian casualties. An initial review of all
cluster munitions used and the targets they were used on indicate that
only 26 of those approximately 1,500 hit targets within 1,500 feet of
civilian neighborhoods. And there's been only one recorded case of
collateral damage from cluster munitions noted so far." (Agence
France-Presse April 25, 2003)

But this was only part of the picture, for: [...]Myers did not
mention surface-launched cluster munitions, which are believed to have
caused many more civilian casualties.

"To imply that cluster munitions caused virtually no harm to
Iraqi civilians is highly disingenuous," said Kenneth Roth,
executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Instead of whitewashing
the facts, the Pentagon needs to come clean about the Army's use of
cluster munitions, which has been much more fatal to civilians." (Human
Rights Watch April 25, 2003)

Data compiled by Iraq Body Count from widely published press and
media reports shows that at least 200 civilian deaths have already been
reliably reported as being due to cluster bombs, with up to a further
172 less firmly linked deaths that also involved other munitions. A
table consultable at http://www.iraqbodycount.net/editorial.htm lists
these 372 deaths and provides basic information for all reported
incidents in which cluster bombs were involved. It reveals that 147 of
the 372 deaths have been caused by detonation of unexploded or
"dud" munitions, with around half this number being children.

Cluster bombs have been used by coalition forces right through the
war. Basra, Nassiriya, Hilla, Najaf, Manaria, Baghdad: all these towns
have lost scores of civilian lives in cluster bombing raids.

Not only do cluster bombs kill; they maim in particularly
excruciating ways. On April 10th Pepe Escobar of the Asia Times reported
that All over Baghdad, the city's five main hospitals simply cannot cope
with an avalanche of civilian casualties. Doctors can't get to the
hospitals
because of the bombing. Dr Osama Saleh-al-Duleimi, at the al-Kindi
hospital, confirms the absolute majority of patients are women and
children, victims of bullets, shrapnel and most of all, fragments of
cluster bombs: "They are all civilians," he says, "caught
in aerial and
artillery bombardment". The International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC) is in a state of almost desperation. Its spokesman, Roland
Huguenin-Benjamin, contacted by satellite telephone, still mentions
casualties arriving at hospitals at a rate of as many as 100 per hour
and at least 100 per day. (Asia Times April 10, 2003)

The Mirror's reporter Anton Antonowicz visiting a hospital in Hillah,
wrote "Among the 168 patients I counted, not one was being treated
for bullet wounds. All of them, men, women, children, bore the wounds of
bomb shrapnel. It peppered their bodies. Blackened the skin. Smashed
heads. Tore limbs." - "All the injuries you see were caused by
cluster bombs," Dr Hydar Abbas told Antonowicz. "Most of the
people came from the southern and western periphery. The majority of the
victims were children who died because they were outside." (The
Mirror April 03, 2003)

On April 8th, Amnesty International urged that an independent and
thorough investigation must be held and those found responsible for any
violations of the laws of war should be brought to justice. The US and
UK authorities should order the immediate halt to further use of cluster
bombs. - (Amnesty International April 08, 2003)

It is unsurprising to us that, on the same day as General Myers
issued his "body count" of 1, the United States blocked
international efforts to allow a United Nations Human Rights Commission
investigator of crimes under Saddam Hussein to look at the post-Saddam
period. (Reuters April 25, 2003) Such blocking strongly suggests that
the USA and the UK have much to hide.